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Wilma Mankiller discusses role in tribal politics
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Filed Under: Education | Politics

When she was running for chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma in the 1980s, Wilma Mankiller faced critics who said she couldn't lead the tribe because she is a woman.

Mankiller went on to win the election but it wasn't always easy sailing. She recounted a story about one council member who kept interrupting her during meetings.

"Everybody had their own microphone, and during the course of the meeting every time I would try to conduct the meeting this one fellow kept interrupting me and kept saying I wasn't following some obscure rule I'd never heard of," she told students at Baylor University of Texas.

How did Mankiller resolve the situation? "So what I did was between the first meeting and the second meeting I went to the communications department and I asked them to change all the microphones so that I controlled the microphones. And then when he started interrupting me, I just turned off his microphone," she said.

Mankiller served the tribe for 10 years.

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Chief discusses female leaders (The Lariat Online 4/1)

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